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Opera Queensland drafts army to drill performers

Opera Queensland has enlisted a special recruit from the Army's 7RAR Enoggera base in Brisbane to advise on the authenticity of its production of Verdi's Otello which is set in modern military times.

Transcript

MATT WORDSWORTH: It's one hundred and twenty six years old. But Verdi's opera 'Otello' has remained timeless. Now an Australian director has set out to turn, what's considered to be one of 'The great tragedies' into a modern war story. And he's enlisted the army to help him accomplish the mission. Kathy McLeish reports.

KATHY McLEISH: Literary and musical worlds collided when Italian composer Guiseppe Verdi turned his talents on Shakespeare's play Othello more than a century ago.

SIMON PHILLIPS, DIRECTOR: This opera has some of my favourite music of all opera in it.

SIMON PHILLIPS: In combination with his Librettist Boito he had an extraordinary knack of making music sound like speech it's a relatively easy job for a drama director to approach these two works because they're so exquisitely put to music.

KATHY McLEISH: Now, Verdi's Otello is being performed in Queensland. But with a modern twist. Simon Phillips has set the war-torn psycho drama on an aircraft carrier and based the costumes on current uniforms.

SIMON PHILLIPS: I kind of really wanted the audience to feel the presence of a military world and I thought that if they had imagery that was contemporary to them they'd kind of go oh yeah these are soldiers these are men of war and consequently the recourse to violence in the play which is quite extreme might feel more understandable on some level.

LT COL BYRON COCKSEDGE, AUSTRALIAN ARMY: There's always the human dynamic in any conflict and that human dynamic and the human conditions doesn't change whether your overseas somewhere or back home and I think that's what setting it in the contemporary military environment does it actually brings to the fore the items or the issues of the human condition that Otello is addressing or trying to portray.

KATHY McLEISH: Opera Queensland drafted the Army to drill the cast. Lieutenant Colonel Byron Cocksedge is the Chief of Staff at 7th Brigade Gallipoli Barracks Enoggera in Brisbane. He's drawn on 25 years of Army experience both here and in conflict zones around the world.

LT COL BYRON COCKSEDGE: Where we are in the 21st century where there is conflict everywhere I think it will sort of resonate with the audience.

KATHY McLEISH: And the military direction has resonated with the performers too.

CHERYL BAKER, 'DESDEMONA': There is some precision isn't there in the turning too saluting and all that fortunately I don't have to worry about that in resolution.

KATHY McLEISH: Australian soprano Cheryl Barker and American tenor Frank Porretta play the doomed lovers Otello and Desdemona. And Verdi's score drives their journey from the giddy heights of happiness to deep tragedy. The three leading roles are renowned as some of the most vocally demanding in Verdi's works.

SIMON PHILLIPS: There's a duet that two men do at end of act which is one of the most spine chilling pieces of dramatic, dramatic writing for the theatre that I know of so I find that complete thrilling to work on every time.

KATHY McLEISH: Simon Phillips will have many opportunities to work on Otello this production is collaboration between six companies. The Queensland, Victorian, West Australian, South Australian, New Zealand and South Africa's Cape Town companies have banded together.

SIMON PHILLIPS: You know there is a genuine need to let the audiences outside of Sydney who have Opera Australia they do some touring and they go to Melbourne obviously on a regular basis but for the audiences in the other states to get as rich a variety of operatic experience as they can and one of the ways that this can be afforded is with that kind of venture.

KATHY McLEISH: And there are perks for performers.

CHERYL BARKER: Often time's one company will spend all this money on a production and then it's just locked away and you never see it again anywhere so this way at least it has longevity.

FRANK PARRETTA: They use a lot of the same performers they'll try and hire them in its quite good for the performers and for the tech people and for the designers and if there's any trouble you get a call because you know the show already so you wind up going to places you don't usually go via a strange route.

KATHY McLEISH: That's been particularly true for one member of the troupe.

BYRON COCKSEDGE: Oh it's been amazing for me it's been my pleasure to be involved I sit there every day going I don't believe I'm doing this is great.